"I am an elite, special commando operative. I am trained in a thousand ways to kill a man. I have been through wars, and tell my tales through scars rather than words. Now I find myself on the far-end of the world, embroiled in a brutal civil war. The walls of the bullet-riddled buildings are painted in the dark stain of blood, and even the normally yellow sand is saturated to a crimson hue. The only thing that stands between me and and my objective is a single, lowly guard. I shadow his path with a pace only slightly faster than his own. I duck into recesses when he pauses to stretch. I crawl under a car when he pauses to admire an aged poster on a nearby wall. Finally, the distance between the two of us is closed, and I am but a chokehold away from extraction. I ghost up behind him, ready my knife...

and bump into him.

My bullet-soaked corpse is thrown in a ditch, and all of my high-priced, edge-of-technology gear is stripped from my person and sold in the black market. A child later uses my multi-focusing light amplification goggles to spy on his neighbor as she undresses."

Such is the tale of any lone-wolf stealth commando when his or her life is placed in my hands. Said commando is doomed to a pitiful existence of the want to sneak up behind an enemy and quietly throttle him, but usually results in turning a corner too soon, or accidentally rolling into view when I intended to go into prone mode. This tends to be followed by about ten minutes of running away from the collective army of a small, obscure South American nation.

That's not to say that I am a novice in the battlefield. Quite the contrary. I've liberated a hundred nations, and done my part to curb the overpopulation problem that our little planet seems to be suffering from. It's just when I am faced with the requirement of discretion that things get dicey.

I do not get along with stealth games. For some reason, it's one of the few genres I cannot feel comfortable in. Oh, I've made the effort. God knows I have. I've rubbed elbows with Solid Snake and Sam Fischer, hell, I've even helped them complete their mission on a few occasions. Granted, it would be difficult to say that Tactical Stealth Action had anything to do with my methods, but the job got done, and that's what matters right?

My main issue with stealth games usually boils down to a lack of awareness. Oftentimes my faults are exposed as a result of a lack of context in my surroundings. I was aces at Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, as we had a handy mini-map that showcased the cone of vision of the enemy. The levels were also laid out in grid format, which aided in understanding where I was in relation to my prey. Put me in a fully organic world with no magical way of seeing what the enemies see, and it's an exercise in embarrassment.

The only game I can think of that was fully 3-D controlled (and first person, to boot) that pulled off stealth well was the Chronicles of Riddick. Having a blue tint added to your screen when you are safely hidden away in the shadows went a long way for allowing me to understand where I was, and when it was safe to wait, or necessary to run. The game was also a bit more liberal when it came to triggering actions such as stealth kills. You didn't have to be on top of the enemy exactly, you just had to be at a distance that felt right. It's an undefinable factor that I find myself going up against constantly in stealth games.

Take Metal Gear Solid 4, for example. Love the game. Never felt comfortable with close-quarters-combat. 90% of the time I would sneak up closely behind an enemy, intending to take them hostage, and instead throw a punch, or whiff a grapple. This would result in an exclamation point being sounded out, the enemy turning and knocking me to the ground, and me going full-tilt-boogie with an assault rifle from a laying-on-my-back position. Cool stealth, bro.

Now, let's be straight here; these issues are not technically the games fault. I've see the Big Boss runs. I've seen the madness that is "No Alerts, No Deaths, No Rations, Non-Lethal". I do so terribly wish I could be a maestro of the shadows, but unfortunately, it's like describing painting to the blind. I understand the concept, but if you ask me to put it into practice, it's probably going to get messy.

And loud.